Online teaching experiences in higher education institutions of Afghanistan during the COVID-19 outbreak: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Due to the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19), the higher education institutions of Afghanistan shifted to online teaching. This critical situation has rendered both opportunities and challenges in online teaching. Hence, the present study aimed to investigate the opportunities and challenges of online teaching in the higher education institutions of Afghanistan during the COVID-19 outbreak. It also explored the differences in the opportunities and challenges of online teaching according to gender, academic qualification (degree), and teaching experience. A simple random sampling technique was employed to collect the data from 628 university lecturers in Afghanistan. Descriptive statistics, independent sample T-tests and ANOVA tests were employed to investigate the research questions. The findings of the study has revealed some major opportunities and challenges of online teaching. Besides, it was found that there was no significant difference in the opportunities of online teaching between genders, but a significant difference was obtained in the challenges of online teaching across genders. It was also revealed that academic qualifications and teaching experience has made a statistically significant difference in the opportunities obtained by the respondents. The qualification and teaching experience did not have any impact on the challenges of online teaching. Some implications and limitations of the study are also presented at the end of the study.